


Spending a Summer with Gran

by adioscorea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Not Canon Compliant, Original Fiction, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:41:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23530228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adioscorea/pseuds/adioscorea
Summary: In the summer of '92, the Cho household takes a vacation in China. What follows is an interesting insight into Wizarding World of Asia, as well as an insight into Cho's home life.
Kudos: 1





	Spending a Summer with Gran

"Cho, let's go!"

It was summer of '92 in Britain, and having been let out of Hogwarts for the holidays, Cho's family had decided to take a long deserved vacation to visit relatives in China. It would have been the third time Cho went to China, once a year after she was born and once when her younger brother Ming Chang was born five years ago. After suffering an entire year under the constant threat of Dementors sucking out your very soul, or having to deal with the fact that an international convict was on the loose while being in a ministry position, a vacation in the balmy mountains of eastern Sichuan sounded like bliss for the Chang household.

"Cho, you have everything?" Cho's father Wan asked. Mr. Wan Cho was a tall man in his forties, charismatic with a smile that Cho would later use herself to sway the hearts of many at Hogwarts. He would also be fairly well-built, which was unusual for a British wizard.

"Yes father, I have everything." Cho said, pulling down her bags, floating with Wingardium Leviosa. Cho was excited to go: She knew that although her Quidditch skills could use some work, she also knew that a month's long break would not be the end of the world for her career. Who knows? Maybe she would have cousins in China play Quidditch with her.

"Alright, I've packed all of Ming's things, the owl from the British Embassy of Magic in Xi'an gave us the all-clear... Ah, that's right!" Mrs. Chang exclaimed. Despite her position in the Ministry of Magic as the a witch working for International Matters, she was terrible with paperwork. Nevertheless, she quickly reached out a hand and the summoned her family's passports.

"Mum, you gotta teach me how to do that." Chang said. "They don't even teach non-verbals at Hogwarts!"

"Well of course they wouldn't, thinking they're the best at everything," Mr. Chang snidely commented, before grumbling about how he has a few words about how Hogwarts ran things.

"Dear." Mrs. Chang said sternly. "You know what they think of wandless magic here."

"Right... right... a whole bunch of _guailos...._ " Mr. Chang grumbled.

"Honey! Not in front of the children!" Mrs. Chang exclaimed, offended at her husband.

"Mummy, what's a guai-low?" Ming asked, the five year old inquisitive about the word.

"Aaand we're off! Xi'an Embassy!" Mr. Chang exclaimed, and threw a handful of Floo Powder into the family fireplace.

* * *

The family would one by one come out with their belongings from the fireplace at the British Embassy of Magic in Xi'an, China, Mr. Chang in the lead due to his unwillingness to explain certain comments.

"Welcome to China, sir," A wizard with the nameplate "William Jadegrove" greeted. A blue-skinned humanoid of some sort, with a long flowing white beard was sitting next to him while reading a newspaper, and his nameplate read "Hwanghai Ching. "Before I hand you over to my Chinese counterpart Mr. Ching, can I see your family's passport?"

Cho would come in with Ming and her mother, and the four of them would give Mr. Jadegrove their passports, and while Mrs. Chang and Mr. Jadegrove talked about working in the Ministry of Magic's diplomatic sector, Cho would simply look around the building.

The British Embassy of Xi'an looked to be in some kind of an ancient wooden pagoda, with the walls painted black and quite dark, only illuminated by floating, white paper lanterns. They had come out on the ground floor fireplace, and looking above, there was much darkness, the paper lanterns not revealing how high the pagoda went, only that it got gradually narrower and narrower.

"Alright, your's paperwork's looking good, I'll hand you over to Mr. Ching. I hope you enjoy your stay, and please stay safe. And please, have on you the pamphlet "Following the Statute of Secrecy while in China" at all times. I know you are probably the one who wrote a good portion of it Ma'am, but I still have to say it. Every year, we always have travelers needing to obliviate a village before things go bad.

* * *

Cho and Ming sat waiting in the next room down, while their parents talked to Mr. Ching, the Chinese Ministry of Magic Customs officer.

"Cho! Cho! What are we waiting for? Are we going to see our gran soon?" Ming asked: Ming was a five year old, and curious about everything in his world. He didn't remember the last time they were in China, after all. His round little eyes looked at his older sister inquisitively for an answer. It probably didn't help that the little boy was having too much sugar in his body, having already wolfed down two chocolate frogs since they got here.

"They're making sure Mum and and Dad aren't here to steal anything like dragon beards or sagely relics." Cho said, as she realized her mistake and silently took away the third chocolate frog from Ming. She had asked the exact question last time they were her, with just about the exactly same answer. "They're also asking why we're here, so Mummy and Daddy will be telling them that we're here to see Gran."

"Ah... Why is he blue?" Ming asked again, too engrossed in conversation to tell that he was being denied his sweets.

"He's a dragon, Ming," Cho said. "The Chinese Ministry of Magic allows more non-humans to work in their departments."

Ming looked fascinated as their father and Mr. Ching talked about something: Cho and Ming didn't understand Mandarin, so they couldn't tell what was necessarily going on, but they could tell that Mr. Ching and their mother were talking about something and their father annoyed in a certain regard. In fact, Mr. Chang at one point started yelling something, and Mrs. Chang had to calm him down, explaining what was going on. It would be a while before the Chang family was back together, moving their bags now to the center of the building, where there lay a large fire pit.

"I still can't believe they don't think it's safe. Surely things must have changed!" Mr. Chang was speaking annoyed at his wife.

"Honey, I've been telling you, we still need to be careful among the Muggles here. The Ministry of Magic cannot guarantee our safety here if we're caught in the Muggle areas. We have to stay in Wizarding China, or we may not be safe!" Mrs. Chang replied.

Cho was now curious: although she was 14, she didn't really know too much about what was going on in Muggle China that made it so dangerous for wizards. "Father, is everything alright?"

Mr. Chang turned to his daughter. "It's... it's nothing dear," he dismissed, before changing the subject. "Oh, and I need to give you this," he said, before pulling out a small paper flower. "This is the charm for letting you speak Mandarin while we're in China. Don't lose it this time."

Ming looked up at the flower for a moment then blurted out "Hey, but why don't I get one?"

Mrs. Chang replied patiently, "Ming, this is a very fragile charm, and you've broken a lot of things this year already."

"Like my broom." Cho replied, still feeling hurt from the Incident last summer.

"I said I was sorry!" Ming said, whining.

Cho laughed slightly, remembering the incident, and also thinking about her last visit, two years before she went to Hogwarts. Back then, she had received another flower just like this one, she recalled, but then she had lost it somehow. She didn't blame her parents for not giving a charm probably quite expensive to Ming this time around.

"If we are done here, I believe your grandmother is waiting for us at the village." Mr. Chang said, before grabbing some Floo powder from a cauldron off to the side of the central fire pit.

"Sichuan, Mulimshan!" They would yell, as they took the Floo to the hometown of Mrs. Chang.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully I'll write more on this subuniverse more, but that'll probably be another day.


End file.
